


Best Served Cold

by Vituperative_cupcakes



Category: Sleuth (1972), Sleuth (2007)
Genre: Darkfic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 23:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2326988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vituperative_cupcakes/pseuds/Vituperative_cupcakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew Wyke is not a man to trifle with. Andrew Wyke is a man who likes simple solutions. Andrew Wyke has lost patience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Served Cold

_The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. _

 

The young man stirred. Andrew watched him, his head dangling, cheap couture ruffled and damp.

“Morning, merry sunshine,” he said when Milo lifted his head.

Milo made a sound like ice breaking.

“You and your bloody whiskey. I was always a vodka man myself.” he sat on a nearby folding chair. “'Course, I probably couldn't have tasted it in the vodka either. Don't be too hard on yourself.”

Milo groaned and blinked asymmetrically.

“Can't believe I thought you might be a worthy opponent. You're not even as bright as the bloke who delivers my eggs.”

Andrew waited. Milo's eyes fluttered and his head slumped back down.

“I was in your shoes once, you know. The husband was a right nutter. Kept putting on voices and costumes. Actually where the idea for this whole thing came from. But I was smarter than he was.” he tapped the bars. “I never gave you a chance.”

Milo groaned through his nose. “ _nnnnnnndrew_.”

Andrew took a sip of the whiskey in his hand.

“It's funny,” he said, “you being in my shoes. I was young once. I believed in love. And I got fucked over by a total headcase.” Andrew leaned forward and stuck out a finger. “You think I’m cruel? That giggling little shit made me dress up as a clown. But I made him dance. You mark me, I made him dance.” He ended on a snarl.

Milo gave a dry sob.

Andrew drank again, swirling the alcohol in his mouth.

“I thought you were smart. Hell, you thought you were smart, didn't you?”

Milo said, “please.”

“I was clever.” Andrew sat back. “you know what Andrew Wyke looks like? His publishers didn't. 'Lord Wyke.' for all they bloody knew I was a flock of blacklisters cooling their heels over in the land of chips and sausage. Of course—” his mouth tilted ever so slightly upward at the corners. “—that's just between you, me and the walls, innit?”

Milo looks up. His eyes were like cracked crystal.

His voice was hoarse when he said, “you're going to kill me?”

Andrew let the pause drag on too long before he said, “not as such no.”

Milo sobbed a laugh of relief.

“But I can't have you telling people about me, and I can't have you go about flaunting your relationship with Maggie, cavorting with one of my most prize possessions for all and sundry.”

Milo's pupils shrank. He tugged at the chains that held him up, great, wrenching pulls that made his muscles apparent through his shirt. Andrew giggled at the spectacle.

“Oh yes,” he said, “struggle. You've got to put on a good show. There you go!”

Milo stopped, gasping. “What the hell are you going to do?”

All trace of humor fled Andrew's face.

“Buck your ideas up,” he said coldly, “what do you think?”

Milo tittered, on the edge of hysteria. “You can't just—you can't just keep me down here! I have friends! And Maggie! You can't tell me she'll just overlook my sudden disappearance?”

“Oh won't she?”

Milo stammered into silence.

Andrew stood up from his chair. “I told her about this evening. Leaving out a few chief details. Of course that left space, so I had to add a few. Like the bribe.”

“What bribe?”

Andrew stepped forward, laying a hand to the bars of Milo's cell.

“The bribe,” he said, “for leaving her. The jewels. They're just lying about, aren't they?”

Milo's face registered perfect horror.

“I posed it to you to take the jewels, sell them, make a life for you and her. But you did me one better.” Andrew took his hand off the bars and began pacing. “You asked, why don't we just forget the whole thing? You take the jewels, live happily, I take the insurance, and Maggie, and live more or less likewise.”

Milo laughed again, but his eyes didn't match the sound. “Good!” he choked out, “good one, Andrew! I can see why you're the writer, and I’m just–I’m just a hairdresser!” the last sentence came out like a plea.

Andrew bent low, putting his hands on his knees, and spoke to Milo as if dressing a child. “Good, Tindlini. At all times we must remember our proper station in life. It helps one go to one's grave satisfied with what life's thrown you.”

Milo sobbed. This was the same as the sobbing when Andrew had shot him earlier, it came on as suddenly as a thunderstorm and wracked his whole body with wretched sobs. His body went limp, letting the chains hold his weight.

“Oh come, come, Milo,” Andrew comforted, “stoicism is what's called for. Works wonders.”

Milo whimpered. He was dribbling a bit. “There will be others, Andrew. You can't think there won't be. You going to kill them too?”

“Provided they waltz in here like you did, yes.”

Milo spat, “you fucking psycho!”

Andrew rattled the bars. “Not feeling so cocky now, are you? Took away all your puff and then what have you got? Nothing.” He straightened up.

“Wait, wait!” Milo gasped. “someone is going to know I’m down here! Someone will–”

“Not bloody likely,” Andrew said. He stepped forward and pointed at the walls, the ceiling. “This is a very old house. My wife designed the interior. But this– _I_ designed this room.”

Milo made a choking noise.

“Didn't have to do much really. I'm sure a lord or two has had a cockerel scratching up the wrong yard, if you get my meaning. But–and believe me when I say this–no one will even know you're here.”

Milo looked up, eyes full of desperation, mouth open, pleading, entreating:

“ _For fuck's sake_ , Andrew.”

Andrew smiled at him. “Yes,” he said, “hope it was well worth it, mate.”

Milo screamed. Milo screamed and kept screaming right to the point when Andrew closed the door and it sealed without so much as a hiss. The noise muted, then cut off completely when he closed the second door, fashioned to look like a wine rack.

At the top of the stairs he stopped for a moment, listening. The house hummed back at him. With a satisfied nod, he continued to the book room, where he sat in a sculpted chair and paged through the latest manuscript. When his phone buzzed, he reached for it without looking away from the page.

“Hello?” he shifted in the chair, rubbed an ache in his shoulder. “no, no, it's all fine. We're still talking, everything's on track.” He uncrossed his legs and then crossed them over the other way. “No, don't come back. That would be a mistake. Everything's fine.” he paused. “I love you.” He looked out the window to the black night beyond. “I am,” he said to the empty room, “I’m holding you. I can smell your hair.”

He hung up. Before him, on the table, Milo's phone lit up and buzzed. Andrew watched as it vibrated eight times and then stopped. Then it did eight more and stopped. It didn't buzz again. Andrew tucked the papers away. He had already planned a nice walk for tomorrow, beside a lovely cow pond where he could lose the phone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this somehow exists in a universe where both Sleuth movies happened, but the first Milo wasn't Milo and I guess the second half of the second movie didn't happen and nobody thought to check—  
> okay, it's just a highly improbably homage to The Cask of Amontillado.


End file.
